New Baby - Reassurance Requested

[MrR]

Ok, so I'm not technically a mum so apologies for coming onto this site. My wife and I had our first baby last week

So, far our life is a living hell. The baby rarely settles and won't eat properly (the dropping weight is being monitored closely by midwife, and confuses us as DS is constantly feeding from my wife (dozen+ times a day) and is filling nappies as expected). Both my wife and I are absolute zombies and at the end of our tether.

I've seen a few threads on here saying that things will improve - I'm afraid I have a few questions;

1. any idea when things might improve, if only so we can get more than a couple of hours sleep?
2. do things really improve, or do parents simply adapt?
3. has anyone else considered putting their newborn up for adoption - if so, does this feeling pass?

My wife and I could really do with some reassurance/helpful advice.

Thanks for any help.

Shut up you lot with your arguing, or take it outside. MrR needs a bit of TLC here.

MrR, this is totally normal. First 6 weeks are very difficult, next 6 weeks are quite difficult, then there is a really low ebb as the sleep deprivation really starts to bite (Frankly, Amnesty International would try to get this banned if a political regime tried it).

Between 3-6 months there is a slight upward curve on the sleep and housekeeping front. By around 6 months lots of babies start sleeping through, and many people are even discussing having another one, unbelievable as it may seem at the moment.

Things we did that worked for us:

Just keep one room nice, let the rest be a mess if necessary. Set up a cosy breastfeeding den in the nice room with snacks, drinks, TV remote, magazines, cushions, pillows or whatever positioned around the most comfy chair.

Eat lots of posh ready meals or get friends to bring some decent food around. You can actually ask people for casseroles and apple pies if they ring up with offers to come to see you, and people are almost always happy to help. Good homecooked food is excellent for sleep deprivation, we found.

Babies can go into the big wide world in the pram after a couple of weeks. Around this time, make sure wife visits hairdresser or beautician for pampering morale boost. Look after baby for an hour in nearby cafe or pub while she does this; have pint, read paper, feel briefly human. This will prevent cabin fever.

Most importantly of all, tell wife she is amazing and beautiful and that you love her, all the more for giving you this gorgeous, gorgeous baby.

Hi MrR and congratulatins. Everything you describe is perfectly normal. I personally found the newborwn stage horrid and no matter how many books you read and classes you go on, you're never prepared for it until you experience life with a newborn (and I DID secretly consider adopting out our baby in the first few days). However, it does get easier. For us we turned a corner around 6 weeks and started to feel better and we were lucky in that DD was sleeping through by 3 months.

Like others have said, ignore the housework and just do the necessaries, never refuse help from relatives and friends and as ur wife is breastfeeding thats fantastic and if she can get to 6 weeks thats a great achievement. You will get used to it and you'll start to forget what life was like before you had a child. you will start to get some normality back into your life. give it another few weeks and things should settle down...and im also due in 7 weeks with baby no 2 and wondering how I'll cope!! good luck.

M&S ready meals and a book called something similar to A guide to the first 6 months which writes week by week about what to "expect" (typically). I loved it because it talked about how many dirty nappies were 'normal', how often the baby may feed for etc.
My favourite thing was looking ahead to week 16 (ish) and reading "you should be starting to get more sleep now". I counted down to that week.

MrR, it's probably a bit early to get yourself worried about full-blown PND if your baby is less than 2 weeks old. What you and MrsR are experiencing now is completely and totally normal. It's just no-one warned you it would happen. Rather than worry about "full-blown" PND in the future, just concentrate on the "now" ie. getting through the day, hour by hour. At one point my DH and I were doing twenty minutes by twenty minutes. It is normal, normal, normal, honestly. Everyone is a wreck, and it will take a while. But you will get there. Can you afford paid help?

Yes things do get so much better, I liken it to baby boot camp the first 6-8 weeks, head down, get stuck in, eat, sleep, poo - that is you and the baby! Then they will smile and you and you will melt, then they sleep a bit longer, less poo, more smiles, you feel better and it goes on and on like that. Some days are hideous, some are better, some are fabulous and some are just ok. The fac you've asked for you and your wife shows you care, so go give your Mrs and big cuddle to helo each other.

Yes things do get so much better, I liken it to baby boot camp the first 6-8 weeks, head down, get stuck in, eat, sleep, poo - that is you and the baby! Then they will smile and you and you will melt, then they sleep a bit longer, less poo, more smiles, you feel better and it goes on and on like that. Some days are hideous, some are better, some are fabulous and some are just ok. The fac you've asked for you and your wife shows you care, so go give your Mrs and big cuddle to helo each other.

Mr and mrs R - truly just get through these weeks.

Routines, plans, schemes and fixes come and go - what stays constant is the earth shattering tiredness and total bedlam of life with a newborn child!
I personally think men like to be able to fix and come up with solutions too. Like your adoption idea. An obvious fix to an obvious problem - this noisy little thing thats moved in!

However I feel now that acceptance is the first key to enlightenment. Enlightenment in the new parent world means teeth brushed and clean underwear.

Just get through each day. Because in my life, even if I do nail one thing, the child simply develops another thing.

It's not negativity 'cos I feel really positive towards my dd1 and soon to be dd2, I'm generally relaxed and laughing and enjoying them, it's just acceptance that you have a new person who has moved in - and they have their own agenda and couldn't give a damn if it's day or night, feeding time or sleep time.

so so soon the thing will be the weaning thing.....no really it will!

This may not sound reassuring at the moment but i felt so like you sound and often felt guilty for feeling as you do after my first baby, you ARE normal, baby number 1 is a HUGE change!!!Tiredness for anyone is as I was told used as a form of toruture within certain armiesof the world so this goes to show how lack of sleep can affect the way we feel and behave.This website will get you through-I find just being able to moan helps-I am a parent to 3 children aged 5,3 and 6 months now and this website has seen me through many difficult days,I was even online during labour with ds1!(Third child)keep online and keep talking, would be keen to hear how you are doing in a few more weeks?There is no doubt to me being a parent is the most difficult job in the world, I truly mean that! and yet the most rewarding.Don't try too hard to get it right-people that seem to be 'coping exceedinlgy well and never moan are the ones that are usually finding parenting the most difficult!

definitely get your food shopping delivered and ask visitors to make their own cups of tea!

Wow, I see continuum concept and nazi have already been aired, and I've not said anything yet! Nice work Eleanor, your ff/cot in own room/routine advice really fits with the SIDS/DoH guidelines....

Any way, MrR, it is not normal for baby to feed constantly and not gain weight, you need to get DS's latched checked to make sure he's actually getting milk when he's feeding. Find a breastfeeding counsellor (not all midwives are skilled in bf support and often give dodgey advice) and get someone to come and see you.

As for him not settling, do you mean when you put him down? So don't put him down!! Seriously, get a sling so you can carry him and give MrsR some rest, and MrsR should really be doing nothing but sitting on the sofa/lying in bed and nursing and cuddling etc. Don't expect to be able to put him down and walk away he will want to be held pretty much constantly, and this is normal!!! Or, does he cry even when he is held? Is there a position that he prefers, like being held upright rather than cradled horizontally?

Keep posting and hangin there.......

How about getting a postnatal doula to give you both a break?

and rope as many friends and relatives in to help you out as possible. Friends with babies will know how hard it is at first.

My dad came over once and "babysat" for 45 minutes whilst we went to the pub for a drink (soft drink for me at the time). We only had 45 mins because she wanted to feed constantly so I didnt dare leave her any longer but it was lovely to have 45 minutes without her and to just be "us".

Congrats Mr and Mrs R! We had a very tough time with ds1 yet somehow have ended up with ds2 and ds3! Ds1 dropped huge amounts of weight, it was so depressing to have a baby attached to me day in day out and yet every time he was weighed he had dropped more. Somehow we got through it and I ended up feeding him for more than a year. Ds3 is only 7 weeks old and we are honestly knackered - but I really believe the "worst" is over within the first 6 weeks, so hang on in there.

Just on the feeding front, is Mrs R eating enough? I didn't with ds1 - I was so fretful about feeding him I neglected myself and would suddenly realise I hadn't eaten in hours. I ended up making myself packed lunches in the middle of the night and keeping them in the fridge ready to grab at a moments notice.

I'm completely with Greenmonkies here, newborns need love and cuddles and security. Nothing else matters at this stage. Plenty of time for routines when the little one is older.

Thank you all for your kind words of support.

DS has finally started putting on a little weight. Only 1oz over the course of the weekend, but at least he's heading in the right direction. It's pretty frustrating for my wife though as DS is constantly feeding and we thought there would be a bigger improvement. Oh well, Midwife will be back again tomorrow to weigh him again.

DW is still rather down in the dumps and doesn't yet have the bond that some people describe for their newborn, but your posts have reassured us that this should come our way and that what we're feeling is pretty normal. I'll be keeping a close eye on my wife's wellbeing though and will continue to support her as best I can, keep telling her how lovely she is and try to give her a break from DS when he's not feeding - it's the least she deserves.

Finally, DS is settling a bit better now - though he keeps getting overtired. We're still trying to figure out how to avoid this (swaddling, white noise, lots of cuddles etc) and hopefully we'll find our way through soon.

Thanks again for your support and I've no doubt I'll be back on this forum looking for more help soon.

Mr R, has your midwife told you that it is quite normal for a baby to lose some weight initially, and it can take a few weeks for that weight to come back on again.

I took a long time to bond with dd, partly due to the fact that I felt I was failing her when she didn't put on weight at the beginning (it took over 3 weeks for dd to get back up to her birth weight). I felt so much better when I was finally told that this was normal, and ok, and did not make me a bad mother.

I agree with whoever suggested getting a midwife or breastfeeding counsellor to check your wife's latch. If the baby is feeding all the time but not putting on weight, it may be that he's not feeding as efficiently as possible.

So glad he is beginning to put on a little weight. I think most people experience this with their first baby. It is all such a terrible shock!!!! I remember sitting trying to feed a screaming 10 day old DD1 at 3am and just wishing I could give her back. I remember sitting with her on my lap, utterly exhausted just watching her scream and feeling strangely detatched and uninterested and just wishing it would all stop. As for a bond..... well i'd have protected her with my life, but at this stage, no, i can't say I felt that overwhelming rush of love I had expected. It creeps up on you and suddenly before you know it it's there. Try not to think about the whole bonding thing, you've only just met your son, it will happen in due course.

I always say to my friends who are expecting their first baby that the first 6 weeks are simply an endurance exercise. Do ANYTHING you can to survive and get through it and then things DO start to improve (not miraculously at 6 weeks, but slowly and surely). I remember thinking my life was over and would never be back to any semblence of normality, but 3 months in and everything was fine (not perfect but fine!).

Oh - and second time around you don't feel like this at all, probably because you have some idea of what you are supposed to be doing, and also a real awareness that the bad times do not last forever (which is hard to believe with your first!)

Don't worry about routines or anything yet either - again I think the 6 week mark is a good time to start observing and easing into a routine if that's what you want.

can totally relate to sentiments in 3 -not adoption but why the hell do people have more than 1. I would say take it day by day -concentrate on feeding (with m/w help) imo if you can try to sort that other things follow. Forget h/w, anything else and sleep when baby sleeps. maybe do some kind of shift with your dp - I found evenigns unbearable so if you could do a couple of hours then so your dp can sleep then you could slepe through night - I found that making dh sleep so one of us had some shut eye made things easier.

and it does pass - seriously it was liek a cloud lifting at about 4 weeks...

apologies if repeating myself as didnt have time to read all posts - I just feel your pain

nelly that is an excellent post - so heartening to hear that its not like that second time (actually 21 weeks in I am now sufficiently robust to think of doing it again and make mental notes of tricks to remember for next time - like don't get out of bed for first two weeks)

MrR welcome! well my first child is 10n weeks old, and it feels like it's flown. can't really tell you about when he started sleeping well - it's up and down - some nights he sleeps through others he won't sleep at all. second the advice about slings I have a Moby - try bigmamaslings.co.uk.
I dodn't think about adoption but I DID ask if I could put him on Ebay

Yes, and I spent the first 2 months begging my DH to promise that we would never "have to have any more babies". I got through it by thinking that I would only ever have to do it once ...... and 10 months later, I want another baby!